we're only layers of skin hiding bone
by meganface
Summary: Mickey's been getting bruises almost all his life.


The first bruise Mickey gets - at least the one he still remembers - is when he's seven years old. He'd taken one of Mandy's dolls - a rubbish little thing made of cheap plastic - and pulled off it's arms and legs so that it's just a limbless torso with a head.

She screams at him, demanding he tell her where he put them. Of course he doesn't - he finds it funny when she starts to get red in the face, her eyebrows low in a scowl. She's always taking his stuff to play with, so fair's fair.

The pinch comes as a shock because Mandy never fights back with anything but her words, running to their mom to tell on him. Her thumb and forefinger dig into the flesh of his arm, and no matter how hard he tries to force her off, she won't budge. Clinging to him with steel in her eyes. It scares Mickey, reminds him of the look his dad gets right before he slaps his mom for stealing money from his wallet.

And when the kick he aims at her shin still don't throw her off, he shouts that they're under his bed. He holds his arm to his chest when she scurries across the floor, dropping to her knees to search for them. The red spot doesn't fade as he stares down at it, no matter how much he's expecting it to.

In comparison to those to come, the little bruise that sits in the middle of his forearm is nothing. Mickey doesn't know that now, though; his eyes fall to it without meaning to, the purple-red patch of skin seeming so out of place and obvious that he can't help but stare.

...

By eleven, Mickey's grown accustom to bruises. Cuts and scabs, too. The ones he gains and the ones he gives. To older kids at school who piss him off, stupidly thinking his age and height mean he can't paint their ribs purple and make blood pour from their noses.

From his dad: the only person Mickey will never truly fight back with. That is until Ian Gallagher comes into his life, tearing down the walls he's built like they're made of paper. But Mickey's eleven and still thinks his dad is some sort of hero; the only Gallagher he knows is the smartass in his classes.

...

A girl gives Mickey a hickey one night. Right under his fucking jaw so that he can't even hide it, pretend the thing doesn't exist. Because he doesn't like it. Didn't like getting it. The girl had pushed him up against a wall at a party where everyone was too young to drink, too young to smoke, but only in the minds of those who know of a life without struggle.

He's heard his brothers comparing theirs. Making it sound like they're talking about their dicks; how the bigger it is, the more a girl was into them so they win or some shit. Something dumb like that.

Mickey's is no bigger than a quarter; he doesn't know if he wins or loses but whenever he catches sight of it, the marked up skin, something twists in his stomach at the memory of that girl's mouth on him.

So maybe he loses.

...

His mom never bruises him. She's gentle with her shaky hands - they're used to hold rather than punch. Not that she holds Mickey anymore. Barely touches anything that can't give her a high. Iggy says it's because she loves drugs more than them and Mickey thinks that maybe he's right because she sure as shit looks happier when she's got some crank in her pocket than when she's expected to look after them.

Iggy doesn't say that the drugs will kill her, but they do.

And Mickey wonders if maybe his mom did bruise him. Worse than how his dad does, worse than the patches of colour on his ribcage. He thinks that she bruised something internal, a part of him on the inside.

Then he tells his mind to shut the fuck up because bruises fade in time and the bitch is dead anyways.

...

The first time Mickey gets marked up and likes it, it's because of some fucking redhead he's let into his life, into _him_. Gallagher isn't the first guy he's fooled around with. But he is the first one that leaves lingering traces of himself on Mickey's hips. The first one who makes Mickey feel like he's two feet tall and the fucking Empire State Building all at once.

They hurt each other, though. Maybe Ian doesn't know that. In fact Mickey's pretty sure Ian thinks he's the only who gets beaten down by what leaves Mickey's mouth before he flees the store, thoughts of Frank running his mouth clouding his judgement, but that's bullshit.

He feels seven years old again, taking what was Mandy's and tearing it apart - only this time it isn't for fun, it's a necessity, and this time it wouldn't just be Mandy who'd scream at him and fucking pinch once it's known who he's taken and how. It'd be his dad, his brothers - fuck, _anyone_ who thinks fags are the scum of the earth - with precisely aimed fists and steel-toed boots.

Because it turns out Mickey hates fucking girls just as much as he hated getting that hickey sucked into his neck.

So he says what he has to and he does what he has to, and winding up in juvie isn't nearly as bad as what winding up in a ditch half-dead would be like.

...

For a while, Mickey doesn't get hurt, not really. His name carries enough weight that nobody dared touch him in juvie. And he was good little boy, all but offering his ass up just to get out as early as possible.

He doesn't tell Ian that, says it was because of overcrowding or some shit. Mickey didn't behave so he could get out for any other reason than he wanted to; it wasn't for Gallagher, it fucking wasn't, but he'd think it was, so it's just easier to lie. It's almost always easier to lie.

And they fall back together again; like they've been at opposite ends of an elastic band, stretching it out until it snaps. It's just as graceless and rough and fucking stupid as it was before, but Mickey's too damn pleased to do anything but enjoy it.

He enjoys kicking that fag around and he enjoys headbutting that grey-haired asshole who's old enough to pass as Ian's fucking grandpa. He enjoys walking past cars and not seeing a busted up lip; evidence of the damage a fist can create. Because the only thing he wears on his skin is the hickey between his shoulderblades and the handprints on his hips.

At least it is until his ass gets shot at. But even then, even though it hurts more than the shot to his thigh, he can't help thinking it's not so bad.

Mickey can't properly see the bruising and the bandages unless he twists round in front of the bathroom mirror, but Ian says it sort of looks like leopard print. He's too high (on weed and something else, something he doesn't want to look into) to do anything more than shove at Ian's arm, hiding his smile in the rim of his beer bottle.

With a smile that matches Gallagher's, feeling light and happy, Mickey doesn't know that his dad will come home early tomorrow and prove what Mickey's thought right from the beginning to be true. That this thing he and Ian have, it can't last.

He doesn't know he'll be knocked unconscious by his own father. He doesn't know that he'll fight back and how his dad isn't the hero of any story, never has been. He'll continue to be the villain because hero or not, Mickey will obey him - will have to obey him - and that's the worst kind of punishment.

But he doesn't know that. He'll have to fuck some girl and it'll be worse than the first time, so much worse, because he won't be just trying to prove something to himself, he'll be trying to prove to his dad that it's want he wants. That the grimacing and the pain that blooms in his chest, spreading to behind his eyes until he has to close them, is nothing, doesn't mean he isn't enjoying it.

But he's oblivious to that right now. He's trash talking shitty action movies, unaware that his mouth will form vows in a matter of weeks and that he'll be bruising Ian soon.

...

Words had never really meant much to Mickey. He started swearing almost as soon as he learnt to speak and promises weren't fuck all. He never used his words if he didn't have to.

They fail him anyway. When it really matters, words fucking fail him. They rush from his mouth when he's stood in front of too many people in a stupid tux and they feel like they're slicing at his throat when he tries to tell Ian to stay - just stay.

And he thinks - no, he fucking knows - that Gallagher has bruised him just like his mom did. Fucking beaten his insides with words and looks and feelings harder than his dad's fists have ever hit.

And they won't fade after a week like that first bruise from Mandy or that fucking hickey he hated. They might grow less painful; prodding at them might not leave him gritting his teeth so that he doesn't scream from how badly they hurt.

But he'll _always_ fucking feel them, he's sure of it.


End file.
